


Who Was I Kidding (I Can't Get Past You)

by wibblywobblyfandom



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: (he actually owns the cafe but u get the point), Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Barista Bellamy, M/M, Minor mention of child abuse, Murphamy Week, and a lil angst, fluff but also plot, probably very innacurate descriptions of how businesses work and how a coffee shop is run, theres possibly some princess mechanic if u squint and use ur imagination, this is my first chaptered work and im terrified haha
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-07-24 18:38:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7519015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wibblywobblyfandom/pseuds/wibblywobblyfandom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy and Murphy are friends when they're kids, until they're not.<br/>Bellamy's café is going great, until it isn't.<br/>Murphy comes back and screws everything up, until he doesn't.</p><p>A.K.A. The one where Bellamy owns a failing coffee shop and Murphy wants to do everything he can to help, but y'know. He's Murphy. Things don't always go so great for him. <br/>Also, they're Super gay for each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Walk Around Like a Skeleton Last Night, Trying to Find My Way Home

**Author's Note:**

> this is meant to be for day 3 for murphamy week 2k16 (modern au day), but i'm a little late.  
> title from skeleton by the front bottoms!

Aurora’s Café was a tiny hovel of a store, tucked between a dull cream brick office building and an old car repair shop. The paint was peeling off the door, the shade canvas hanging over the outside eating area had faded from white to grey, and the hard wood of the floor was warped and stained from years of spilled coffee. From the outside, those who weren’t from the area would pass it off as a place to miss, not to mention a health and safety inspector’s nightmare. The locals, however, knew better.

Aurora’s may have looked dingy, but it had the best coffee in the city (or on that side of the main highway at least). Its sandwiches were fresh, its pastries were crumbly, and the cakes baked not by Aurora but by her ten-year-old son Bellamy were worth their weight in gold. The family lived above the café in a tiny apartment with one bedroom for Aurora and one bedroom shared between Bellamy and his younger sister Octavia

The only downside to living above Aurora’s were days like today, when it was Saturday and Bellamy’s mom made him help out at the café instead of letting him go play with his friends. It was drawing close to closing time- the last customer had left in a gust of flowy fabric, jingling bells, and a tip for his mother to “heal her aura, dearie”- and he was waiting around for his mom to come out from the back so that they could head up to the apartment together.

“Bellamy, I’m having trouble with the coffee machine, could you flip the sign to “closed” so that we don’t get anyone else coming in?” came his mom’s voice from the back, a little raspy from the cold she was just getting over.

Bellamy put his Gameboy down with a groan and pushed himself up from his chair, trudging towards the door. The front of the café was almost all window, and through it Bellamy could see heavy rain falling hard on the gloomy street outside. Although the sun would be only just beginning to set if the weather was clear, the thick grey clouds smothering the sky made it look unsettlingly close to night time.

As Bellamy approached the door, he noticed a strange shape huddled in front of it, crouched down on the step. It was a kid, a someone his age, taking shelter from the rain. Bellamy got to the door and opened it, startling the kid as they- he, upon closer inspection- whipped their head up to see who had opened the door.

The first thing that Bellamy noticed about the boy was his eyes, wide and afraid and the colour of the ocean when it was stormy. The second thing he noticed was the huge gash on his cheek. It was bleeding, blood mingling with rivulets of water running down his cheeks from the hair plastered to his forehead. There was a bruise on his eye the same colour yellow as the walls of the room that Bellamy shared with Octavia, muted and sickly looking.

Bellamy crouched down into a squat right there in the doorway so that he could be eye-to-eye with the strange boy.

“Why’ve you got a cut on your face?” he asked. Immediately, the boy broke eye contact and looked down at his feet, bringing up a hand to brush away the rain- or maybe tears- from the non-gash side of his face.

“’S nothing,” said the boy, voice croaky and raw. Definitely tears. There was silence, before Bellamy decided to try a different angle.

“What’s your name?”

It was quiet again, before the boy murmured an answer almost too quietly for Bellamy to hear

“Murphy.”

The boy turned to face him at this, sticking out a tiny, bony hand.

“I’m Bellamy,” he replied, and took Murphy’s hand, giving it a quick shake. He hadn’t shaken many peoples’ hands before, and they’d all been adults, not kids his age. “What are you doing here?”

“I was walking and then it started raining, so I went under here.”

“Why were you out walking in the rain?”

“I just was, okay?” There was silence, before the boy’s eyes shifted downwards again as he picked at the worn laces of his shoes. “My mom told me to get out, and I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I was just walking. I don’t even know where I am.”

Bellamy frowned. Murphy’s own mom had told him to go away? Who _did_ that? The other boy obviously needed a place to stay for the night, and someone to clean up his face. Bellamy turned, and took a deep breath.

“Mom! Mom, c’mere, I need your help!”

“No, no, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,” protested Murphy, a look of panic on his face “Seriously I’ll be fine, you don’t-“

“Bellamy, what is it? This had better not be a trick, I was almost done- oh.”

Aurora stopped as she caught sight of Murphy, a dripping mess of a boy on the front step of her café, and put on her best Bellamy-what-the-hell-have-you-done-this-time smile

“Who’s this?”

“Mom, this is Murphy. His mom told him to go away and his face is cut and he doesn’t have anywhere to go tonight. Can he stay with us?” pleaded Bellamy, hoping that he didn’t sound too much like a whiny little kid.

Aurora stood for a second before she took a deep breath full of reluctance. Bellamy saw what was in her eyes, saw that she was going to turn Murphy down and make him stay out in the rain all night. He was about to open his mouth to say something, to argue against her, when Murphy cut him off.

“It’s fine, Mrs Bellamy’s Mom, don’t worry about it. I’ll be alright out here, even if I have to sleep under a park bench or something. I’ve done it before.”

Aurora took a second to process his words, released the breath in a sigh of defeat, and motioned for Murphy to come inside, shaking her head.

“Don’t worry about it, you can stay here. There’s no point in making you walk through all that rain again when there’s a perfectly good bed right upstairs. We’ll have to move Octavia into my bed so you can sleep in hers, but that’ll be no problem.”

“Are you sure? I don’t- you don’t have to do this.”

  
“I’m sure, Murphy, just get inside and close that door. You’ll let all the cold air in, and then it’ll get up to the apartment. Now, have you had dinner?”

~~~

Once they had made it upstairs, Aurora set Murphy up in the bathroom and began cleaning him up. The boy looked even worse under the fluorescent lighting, perched on the sink and flinching as Bellamy’s mom dabbed a wet washcloth on the skin around the cut on his face. Bellamy was sitting on the tub beside them trying to think of things to say to distract Murphy from the pain, but it hadn’t been working out very well.

“How did you get lost, anyway? How long were you walking for?” he asked, and his mother shot him a scolding glance. She’d told him off for being too curious more times than he could count.

“I don’t know, I just looked up and couldn’t figure out which way was home, I guess,” the boy responded, trying to brace himself against the pain as Aurora got closer to the wound itself. “I wasn’t even walking that long before it started raining, but Mom and I only just moved here so I don’t really know my way around.”

“Oh. What happened to your face?”

“Bellamy!” scolded his mom, her annoyed glare from earlier turning into daggers.

“Nah, it’s fine. It was- um- it was from a bottle,” said Murphy quietly.

“Wait, how did a bottle cut your face? Did someone throw it at you?”

“Alright, that’s enough of that!” proclaimed Bellamy’s mom as Murphy opened his mouth to reply. “Bellamy, why don’t you go get dinner started? I think I bought spaghetti the other day, we can have that.”

“But _Mom_ ,” whined Bellamy.

“No buts! I’ll concentrate better on fixing Murphy up without you chattering to him, okay?”

There was no arguing with his mom when she used that tone of voice. Bellamy sighed and stood up from the tub, heading out into the hallway.

“Get Octavia to help clear up the kitchen before you start!”

~~~

After dinner the boys headed to Bellamy’s room with Octavia in tow and stern instructions to “ _Include your sister, please_.” Bellamy was keen to become friends with Murphy, but first, the other boy had to pass a test. This would be the deciding moment of their friendship, would either be the beginning of something awesome or a sign that it’d be best to stop things here and go their separate ways.

Murphy sat cross-legged on the end of his bed as Bellamy placed four items on the floor behind him. Once he was done he sat in front of them, carefully making sure that Murphy wouldn’t be able to see a single one.

“Are you ready?”

Murphy nodded, a determined look on his sharp features.

“First question: what dinosaur is this?” Bellamy reached behind him and grabbed one of the larger figurines, a stocky animal with two big horns and a huge frill of bone around its head.

“Easy! Triceratops!”

“What about…” he pulled out a smaller dinosaur with long claws and a longer tail, “this one!”

“A velociraptor, I guess, but they’re meant to have feathers y’know.”

“Yeah, I know. They don’t sell ones with feathers,” grumbled Bellamy. As much as he was annoyed that Murphy had doubted his knowledge, he definitely had to give the kid credit for knowing that velociraptors had feathers. Not many people did.

“Alright, last one. If you get this right, you’re my best friend from now on, okay?”

The other boy nodded his head.

“What dinosaur is this?”

Bellamy grabbed the pride of his collection and brought it in front of him, showing it off. The dinosaur was smaller but stocky, with four short legs, spikes covering its back, and a long tail that ended in a heavy-looking club.

“Holy crap, that’s an ankylosaurus!” Murphy said in amazement, and Bellamy grinned with pride. It’d taken him ages to find it. “Where did you get- Bellamy, look out!”

Suddenly he was tackled from behind, crushed by a heavy, wriggling body.

“ROAAAAR, I’M GONNA EAT YOU,” yelled Octavia, shoving a t-rex in his face and knocking the ankylosaurus out of his hands.

“Don’t worry, Bellamy, I’ll save you!” called Murphy as he grabbed the velociraptor from the floor and started hitting it against Octavia’s dinosaur. As she was pushed off of him from the force of Murphy’s attack, Bellamy snatched up the ankylosaurus and joined the battle, just him and Murphy against the giant t-rex and all of Octavia’s pent-up 8-year-old energy. They played games with the dinosaurs for the rest of the night, before tumbling into bed and whispering to each other into the wee hours of the morning (around 11 pm).

~~~

The next morning the two boys were ecstatic to find that Murphy lived just two streets away, and that he was starting at Bellamy’s school the very next week.

“You should bring your dinosaurs to school!” said Murphy, eyes widening in excitement as they sat in the backseat of Aurora’s old car during the short drive back to his house. “I’ve only got one, but I’ll bring that too, and then we can get them to eat all the other toys! It’ll be awesome.”

“Alright, yeah, but be careful. There’s this one kid called Dax, and if he sees your dinosaur he’ll steal it and smash it up. He did it with my brontosaurus last month.”

Murphy’s eyes hardened over.

“If he breaks your dinosaur again, you just tell me, and I’ll take care of him, okay?” Murphy said with a quiet, fuming determination in his voice. “We’re best friends. We gotta look out for each other.”

Bellamy was taken aback by the other boy’s anger. It wasn’t that he didn’t have friends, or that they didn’t care about him, but when Dax had stolen his brontosaurus they hadn’t said anything in case their toys got broken too. Bellamy had never had anyone who was as protective of him as he was of them.

“Alright Murphy, is this it?” called Aurora from the front seat, turning back to look at the boys.

“Yep! Thanks for the ride Mrs Bellamy’s Mom.”

Murphy opened the door and hopped out of the car, turning back to face Bellamy once he was safely on the curb.

“Seeya tomorrow Bellamy,” he grinned, all sharp teeth and bruises, before closing the door and heading up to the house.

~~~

Over the next year and a half the boys became close friends, to the point that they were no longer separate people. What had once been “Bellamy Blake and John Murphy” was turned into “Bellamy and Murphy”, one person comprised of two boys who were never seen without their best friend. If you wanted Bellamy you got Murphy, and if you wanted Murphy you could bet your ass that Bellamy would be there too.

They played together, fought together, and defended each other to the very end. When Dax tried to break another of Bellamy’s toys he found himself with a bloody nose courtesy of Murphy’s right hook, and when snotty Cage Wallace had a go at Murphy for turning up to school with a black eye, every single one of his new colour pencils turned up “mysteriously” broken in two.

Murphy stayed at the Blakes’ almost every night and became like a second brother to Octavia, one who would teach her how to punch properly and glower at kids if they uttered a single mean word, Bellamy at his side.

The boys were always together in class, too. Even if the teachers separated them they’d talk to each other from across the room in sign language, eventually growing their skills enough that the teachers began to seriously regret ever holding a specialised lesson day to help the kids learn to sign.

It was while they were in class that everything changed.

Mr Pike was just handing out yet another spelling worksheet when the school secretary’s nasally voice crackled out across the failing PA system.

“Would John Murphy please come to the front office? That’s John Murphy to the front office, thank you.”

The room fell silent as all eyes turned to Murphy, who simply looked up at Mr Pike in surprise.

“Better head up there, Murphy. Do you need anyone to come with you?” asked the teacher, though every single person in the room knew what Murphy’s answer would be.

“Can Bellamy come?”

Mr Pike sighed in defeat and crossed his arms. The teacher had had a grudge against the boys since the beginning of the year when they’d knocked his favourite mug off of the desk in their rush to get outside for recess.

“Alright, but he takes you there and comes straight back, okay?”

“Yes, Mr Pike!” chorused the boys as they jumped out of their chairs and bolted out of the classroom, eager to avoid as many boring spelling activities as possible.

The walk to the office was quick, and the boys worked together to heave open the heavy glass door. Bellamy grunted in annoyance as Murphy was distracted by something inside the office itself and let the door close on him, squashing Bellamy in the process. Turning to grumble at the other boy once he’d finally conquered the swinging monstrocity, Bellamy caught sight of what Murphy had seen and stopped dead. There, standing next to the front desk, was Principal Jaha and two police officers.

“Ah, Mr Murphy! Glad you could join us,” said the principal in that strange, threateningly friendly voice he always used with his students. “And you brought Mr Blake with you! How’s your brother, son?”

It seemed that Jaha was putting on the caring principal act for the policemen. Obviously, he’d taken a calculated risk and assumed that Bellamy had a brother to make up for his lack of genuine knowledge about his students.

“My _sister_ is doing just fine thanks, sir.”

“Right, yes, of course. Anyway, Mr Blake, we’re going to need you to head back to class now. This could take quite a while, and we don’t want you missing out on any of that learning!” Jaha said, chuckling as though he’d just made a great joke. Bellamy pulled the least entertained smile he could muster.

As he turned to leave, one of the police officers reached out a hand and clasped his shoulder in her strong hand, stopping him before he could get out the door.

“Actually, it might be better if you said goodbye now, kid. You might not see your friend for a bit.”

Bellamy looked up at the woman in confusion.

“What? What’s happening? Why won’t I see Murphy?” he asked frantically, worried eyes flitting between the adults before settling on his friend. He seemed to be just as confused as Bellamy was.

“Don’t worry about it, Mr Blake. Just say goodbye and head back to class,” said Principal Jaha, struggling to maintain that benevolent tone as he displayed his authority in front of the officers.

Bellamy turned to Murphy, feeling a surge of protectiveness as he took in the fear in his friend’s eyes.

“Seeya tonight?”

“Mr Blake, I don’t think Mr Murphy will-“

“ _See you tonight?_ ” Bellamy repeated forcefully, cutting of the principal. “Mom’s making spaghetti for dinner, I know that’s your favourite. Octavia’ll be upset if you miss it.”

“Yeah,” said Murphy, and Bellamy felt his stomach clench at the shakiness in his voice. “Seeya tonight.”

With that, Bellamy turned on his heel and headed out the door, refusing to look back. He’d see Murphy in just a few hours. There was no need to be afraid.

Except- he didn’t see Murphy in a few hours. Not at school the next day, either, or the day after that, or any day through all of elementary, middle or high school. According to what Bellamy’s mom was told, Murphy had been taken by child protective services to a group home in a whole different state, and he wouldn’t be coming home for spaghetti any time soon.


	2. reunited and it feels so good (it's so much better than i thought it would)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> guess who's back  
> back again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry that this took so long! im the worst, but so is school, and it's been pretty intense. hopefully the next update wont take 97 years!  
> title from skeleton by the front bottoms

It was only 5:15 am, and Bellamy Blake had already had something of a Day. With a capital “D”, because days as shitty as this one deserved extra emphasis. If he was being honest, a lot of his days had been capital-D-Days since his mom had died. First, he’d taken the full responsibility of running the café onto his not entirely capable 24-year-old shoulders and, unsurprisingly, the bills were starting to pile up. Then, Octavia had moved to another city with her burly, tattooed (but admittedly not the Worst) boyfriend, and to top it all off someone had broken into the coffee shop and stolen a bunch of their equipment, putting the already struggling café in seriously hot water.

So yeah, sure, he’d had worse days. Just thinking about the events of the last few months made it clear that it could’ve been a lot worse. If he was being completely honest, enough things had gone wrong lately that bad days were starting to feel like the new normal days.

The misery had started bright and early at sunny 3 am, when Bellamy was woken up from a fitful sleep on his too-small bed by the pleasant sensation of freezing cold water trickling down his neck. Upon further inspection, he’d figured out that there was a leak in the roof of the apartment above the coffee shop where, yes, he still lived. After catching a less-than-comfortable 2 hours of rest on the couch, Bellamy got up, ignored the stiff grumble of pain in his back, and started to get ready for the day. The blown lightbulb in his kitchen didn’t help much with illuminating any breakfast making activities, but the tiniest little sliver of weak daylight was able to seep through the thick clouds overhead and sneak through his window. Really, the only thing it did was make the room light enough to give Bellamy a perfect view of the overdue bills stacked next to his kettle (and form weird, rain-warped patterns on his kitchen counter).

As he leaned against the rickety countertop, shovelling some sort of sugary home brand offense to the word “cereal” into his mouth, Bellamy contemplated some serious life issues; namely, the old dinosaur toy that he’d had when he was a kid. The ankylosaurus was still kicking around on a shelf in his room somewhere, propped up with a bit of blu-tack after one of its legs had broken off. If he was being honest with himself, Bellamy knew that it was probably time to let the old hunk of plastic go. It was damaged, the colours were faded, and there wasn’t much point in keeping it around- but Bellamy still did, for not much reason other than he needed a reminder that things weren’t always so shit. Honestly, it seemed like a lot of things in his life were like that at the moment. Sometimes he felt like maybe he and the dinosaur were one and the same, still hanging around, desperately trying to remember the good times and cling to any semblance of hope that things could get back to the way they were despite all the shit that had gone wrong.

Then again, maybe he was just a poor coffee shop owner with a habit of making dumb, cheesy metaphors.

Bellamy made his way down to the coffee shop, switching on the lights as he went. Getting to the bottom, he took a moment to send a prayer to whatever deities were listening that that one flickering light in the back corner wasn’t a sign that the Demogorgon from Stranger Things was upon him. He slid behind the counter and trudged over to the one coffee machine the looters hadn’t taken (and for good reason. Hestia was so old that they probably couldn’t even break her down for parts anymore, let alone resell her for anything more than a bag of peanuts). As he reached down to flick the power switch, Bellamy rubbed a hand up and down the side of the machine, as though helping it wake up from a long sleep. Hestia made a loud creaking sound, and his soothing touch turned into slightly frantic, coaxing circles.

“Come on, Hessie, work for me. Just for today, c’mon, you can do it,” the machine’s creaking grew louder, and Bellamy decided that his dignity would have to suffer if he was ever going to get her to work. “Please, c’mon girl, I know you’re old, but you’ve still got something in you. Don’t let me down,” he begged, relief flooding his chest as the creaking subsided into something of a happy grumbling. Bellamy turned away from the machine, satisfied that it would work for today.

Clearly, that was a mistake, as the second he took a step away from her Hestia’s grumble turned into a loud rattling.

“No, no! C’mon, Hestia, please,” he yelled, hitting his palm against the side of the machine in a desperate bid to get her to work again. Suddenly, the machine went silent, broken in every sense of the word. Bellamy sighed and turned to lean against the counter, scrubbing his hands along his face and stopping for a moment to cradle it there before grabbing his phone. Raven, his part-time barista/part-time coffee machine mechanic/full time slightly asshole-ish friend was on her day off, but she was his only hope. He dialled her number before pressing his phone up to his ear.

“Hello?” came a croak from the other end of the line when his call was finally picked up.

“Clarke? What the hell? Why did you pick up Raven’s phone, is she okay?”

“I jus’ thought it was mine, Bell’my, _relax,_ ” said Clarke, and Bellamy could practically hear her rolling her eyes through the phone.

“What? Why would you- ugh, it doesn’t matter. Would you pass the phone to Raven? I really gotta talk to her.”

“Yeah, sure thing, here y’ go.”

He heard the rustling of what sounded like bed sheets and a quiet “’S Bell’my,” before the phone was passed between the two girls.

“This had better be good, Blake,” Raven chided through the phone, clearly a little more put-together than Clarke had been.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s your day off, it’s just… Hestia gave out on me this morning and I don’t really know who else to call. I’m sorry,” he said, guilt filling his stomach as he waited for her response.

“Bellamy-“ she began to sigh, and for the first time he heard the true tiredness in her voice. God, he was an asshole. He’d woken Raven up at five thirty in the morning on her day off and tried to get her to come in to work and try and fix an ancient, cranky coffee machine, one that would probably die for good within the next month anyway. Even Monty, a known saint among men, would’ve been pissed off at that.

“No, actually, nevermind, nevermind. Don’t worry about it,” he cut in, hoping to stop her rant before she got mad at him for real. “I’m sorry. It’s shitty of me to call you on your day off, I’ll just… I’ll figure something out. It’s not like one day’s profit would do anything to help this mess of a coffee shop anyway. Enjoy your sleep, you deserve it. Sorry again.”

He pulled the phone away from his face and was about to hang up before a frantic “Wait!” crackled out from the speaker. Quickly, he pressed it to his ear again.

“Yeah?”

There was silence, before Raven let out a dejected huff. “I’ll fix your stupid coffee machine, Blake. Just make sure you have one of those blueberry muffins ready for me and Clarke- ow, hey! Yes, Clarke, you’re coming- when we get there. And I get first cup of the day.”

“Raven, you are a life saver, thank you so much, thank you. You can get all the blueberry muffins you want from now on, just- thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah, Blake, enough sappiness. Go away so I can start trying to convince myself to get out of this warm bed.”

“Love you too, Reyes,” he teased, smiling fondly, before a quiet beep informed him that the call had ended.

Moving across the counter he grabbed two of the blueberry muffins that Raven had requested and popped them in the oven, hoping to heat them up a little before the aforementioned mechanic arrived with Clarke in tow. He was just shutting the oven when he was interrupted, none too kindly, by a loud banging on the front door of the café.

Bellamy turned and sighed, spotting a man’s figure at the door, hand raised to thump against the glass.

“Hello? Is this place open?” he called, and Bellamy sighed, squaring his shoulders. He wasn’t looking forward to informing a clearly very pushy businessman that the shop would not, in fact, be able to provide him with the dose of caffeine he so obviously craved. “Your sign says you open at five thirty on weekdays!”

Bellamy quickly paced to the door, putting on his best customer service smile as he flicked the lock and swung it open.

“I’m sorry, sir, but at the moment we’re unfortunately unable to serve any customers,” he said, hoping that the man would just understand and go away.

“Really? Even old friends?”

This caught Bellamy’s attention, and he took a second look at the man, seeing him properly for the first time. There was something familiar about him, something that reminded him a little bit of-

“Holy _shit_ ,” Bellamy said, blinking as he took in the man before him. “ _Murphy?_ ”

“The one and only. Well, probably not. Murphy’s a pretty common last name, but yeah.” he snarked, with the same shark-like grin that Bellamy remembered from all those years ago “It’s me. Can I come in, or what?”

Bellamy didn’t know how the hell he hadn’t realised it was Murphy. Sure, he was a little pointier, a little broader, childhood innocence melting away into angles and sharp edges and haunted hollows, and he’d grown into the sticks he’d had for limbs as an awkward eleven-year-old, but he was still _Murphy_. He still had that wild, reckless energy about him, the stormy eyes, the little tick of wiping his hand under his nose. Even the way he stood was the same, sloping casually with just enough relaxed “I could beat you if I tried, so don’t test me” energy to warn people away (no matter whether that statement was true or not).

Bellamy noticed, with no small agree of smugness, that he was still taller than Murphy, and then remembered that he was probably leaving it a little long to answer Murphy’s question.

“Oh, uh- yeah, yeah. Come on in. Sorry, it’s a little cold, the heating’s not really working.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Anywhere’s gotta be warmer than out there,” Murphy said as he wandered over the threshold. “Man, this place really hasn’t changed, huh?”

Bellamy watched as his old friend slowly took in the café, and had this weird feeling that he knew exactly what Murphy was thinking. He saw the same fragments of memory that Murphy did, played them over and over again in his head just the same. Just over there was the booth where they used to drink strawberry milkshakes bigger than their heads and make themselves sick. Beside it was the spot where Murphy had tripped and slammed his elbow into wall so hard that it dented the plaster, and across from that was the tiny bit of wooden countertop where they’d carved their names and assumed that the mark they’d left there would stay forever.

“Where’s your mom? I thought she normally covered the early shifts,” asked Murphy, looking around as though he might spot her in a corner somewhere. Bellamy swallowed, lips trying their best to twitch up in what was probably the weakest attempt at a sad smile in all of history, and prepared himself for the reaction that always came when he told people.

“Actually, Mom died about six months ago. Car crash.”

Murphy was frozen in his place, looking at Bellamy with such shock in his eyes that he almost wished he’d lied and said she was out of town or something.

“Shit, Bellamy, I’m sorry. That fucking sucks, I’m- uh-“ he reached out and awkwardly placed a hand on Bellamy’s shoulder, sending a jolt through his veins that Bellamy decided would be best to ignore. “I’m here for y-“

“You’d better have our fucking muffins ready, Blake!”

The door slammed open as Raven walked in with a sleepy Clarke trailing behind her, disrupting the fragile, soft silence between Murphy and Bellamy and making them jump apart like teenagers caught making out behind the gym. She cocked her head a little as she noticed Murphy and the tension, immediately going on high alert in case there was some sort of problem she could fix with a quick wrench to the head. Clarke just slumped down into an armchair and went right back to sleep.

“Who’s this?” she asked, training a glare on Murphy, who glared right back in what seemed to be a contest of who could have the worst trust issues.

“Murphy, this is my friend Raven, who works here as a barista and fixes the machines when they fuck up and I’m too incompetent to fix them. Raven, this is Murphy.”

“Wait, _the_ Murphy?” she asked, taking a second look at the man and giving him a once-over.

“ _The_ Murphy? I have a _th_ -“

“Yes, Raven, that’s him.” Bellamy said, before swiftly changing the subject. “Now, uh, Hestia? She isn’t working and we really gotta open for the morning rush,”

“Let me see,” said Raven, flashing Bellamy a look that old him he wouldn’t be able to avoid her questions forever. “I can’t guarantee anything, but she’s probably got a little more life in her yet.” With that, Raven trudged over to the coffee machine, metal brace clunking along the floorboards. She stopped for a moment to gently hip check him out of the way, before continuing on her path.

“Uh, Bellamy?” called Murphy, voice unsure from his spot a meter or so away. “I’ll head out now, if that’s cool. I don’t wanna keep you from your… this.”

“What? No, it’s fine, we’ll just fix up Hestia here and then I’ll make you up a coffee or something,” he said, a little sad that Murphy was leaving so soon. “I’ll have to do Raven’s first, though.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I’ve got some errands to run, anyway, some people to see.”

Murphy reached up to run one hand through his hair, shuffling his feet awkwardly,

“Well, uh. We close around six, if you wanted to come back and take me up on that coffee or something,” said Bellamy. “It’d be nice to catch up.”

“Yeah,” Murphy smiled, “I guess it wouldn’t suck. Seeya ‘round, Bell. Bye, Raven.”

With that, he turned and left, leaving the room unnaturally silent in his wake.

The silence continued, before Raven looked up from where she was fiddling with Hestia’s machinery and gave Bellamy a sly little smile.

“He’s cute,” she said.

“Shut up.”

There was a pause. Suddenly, Raven jolted upwards, dark ponytail swishing from side to side as she whipped her gaze around the room in a somewhat concerning amount of alarm.

“Do you smell something burning?”

Bellamy had a sudden moment of clarity, and his heart dropped to the pit of his stomach.

“ _The muffins.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> today in fanfiction: bellamy really fucking hates himself gdi someone please help this boy. also, the recurring themes in this fic are dinosaurs and spaghetti. more gay coming in later chapters!  
> feel free to leave a kudos or comment, or if you'd like u can hit me up on twitter (@johnmurpy) or tumblr (@john-murpy)! :) (please come talk to me abt murphamy i am So Alone)  
> (p.s. i have no knowledge of how a coffee shop is run please dont fight me i just want these dumb angsty boys to date)

**Author's Note:**

> i did so much dinosaur research for this fic. did u know that the velociraptors in jurassic park weren't even velociraptors? they used a different, cooler-looking dinosaur and just called it a velociraptor.  
> feel free to leave a kudos or comment, or if you'd like u can hit me up on tumblr at john-murpy :) (please come talk to me abt murphamy i am So Alone)


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